I Fell in Love at the Gas Station
by Jericho Wilson
Summary: Mikey's life was never going to have a happy ending. Rikey. Old and angsty. Maybe too angsty.


**Read at your own risk. This is old and unnecessarily angsty. If there are any accidental [i]'s, please let me know.**

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I remember being stood there with my battered old phone clutched tightly to my chest, pressed against my heart as if the waves of electricity could somehow mend my splitting heart. Tears of sorrow poured down my cheeks in their own little tsunami on my face. The news I'd just registered through the crackly static of my mobile had left me stranded in my own mind, unsure of what I should do with my life now that the rope that had kept me suspended in life had snapped, leaving me free falling with no hope of finding a way to grasp onto the edges of the abyss of my life and to put every ounce of my effort into dragging my body out of the hole and up to the bright, sunlight filled surface of lush green grass and vividly coloured plants.

I had my back leaning against the petrol pump as I cried, completely oblivious to the disapproving looks and shouts of complaint from cars behind, I just cried. At some point, a worker came over to tell me I had to move. She told me-very impolitely, might I add-that I had to leave and take whatever fucking problems I had to somewhere less public. At least, she'd tried to tell me; I'd screamed in her face and thrown my phone to the ground, watching the pieces shatter against petrol stained concrete and my own tears increased tenfold, raining down heavily on the broken metal.

I had stood there for hours, mourning my heart out in the form of my glistening tears that just never stopped. Nobody had dared tell me to leave after my first reaction, so I let myself sob on the cold ground, with my knees bent and my face resting against them. For reasons unknown to even myself, I'd gathered up every last shard of metal from the remains of my phone, and kept them sealed in my tightly closed fist. The jagged edges cut into my pale skin, and blood flowed over my fingers and through invisible gaps in my closed fist, but I wouldn't let myself feel the pain.

After all, Gerard had suffered worse.

The big brother who I relied on for everything, the big brother who I'd loved so much for always being there for me. In the end our flaw had been caring for each other way too much. Now, after a fatal attack in an alley, Gerard had been submitted to hospital. He had died of blood loss shortly after his arrival.

I didn't know what to do. I'd always said I'd take a bullet for Gerard, die for him, give him my heart if that was what he needed. But now he was really gone, and I'd done nothing to help him in his final days. I should've been in the alley to beat up the bastard who got Gerard, then he could have a chance of survival. If I actually found out earlier about the attack, I could have been there for Gerard to whisper encouragement. I could have clutched his hand and cried into his chest whilst I begged for him to stay alive for me.

I had to do it. I couldn't spend my life without Gerard, it would tear me up inside until I wasn't even myself anymore, just a violent and depressed man with no life to lead and no one who cared. I was ready to get the phone shards from my hand and tear apart the soft skin of my wrists until the blood overflowed and left me a lifeless body in a pool of petrol and blood. It was not the 'typical' suicide location, but it was where I discovered the news of my brother's death, and that meant a hell of a lot to me. For me, this was a perfect location to die.

But then of course, you came along. You saw the broken boy with the bloody hands and the first few leaking scratches of dark red liquid along my wrists, and you were immediately by my side. You prised the metal from my hands, and gently removed the pieces that had lodged into my skin. You stared at me with those dark eyes that could communicate a thousand feelings effortlessly, and smiled.

It wasn't a mocking smile, it wasn't a smile that said 'I'm about to hurt you.' No, it was a Gerard smile, one of those soft tugs of lips that said whatever you wanted or needed to say, you can say it to me. So I did say it to you. I pleaded for you to help me and get me away from this hell, so you did.

You pulled me to my shaky feet and took me back to your house. At first I was wary; I didn't know much about you and you'd just offered me a bed to sleep in. But after the bandages wrapped gently round the leaking bloody cuts, and the mug of warm hot chocolate poured between my lips as I couldn't lift it myself from the torn up state of my hands, I felt safe.

I slept peacefully, thanks to you, and in the morning you told me stories about yourself, about how you were the guitarist of a band, a band who hoped to make it big. I'd begun crying again then, at the memory of Gerard and his band, and it took only a small amount of coaxing before you got me to tell you about my brother Gerard, the brother who was everything to me, and had been cruelly stolen away from me. I even told you about my plans of suicide, how I had wanted desperately to die before you found me.

It was then that you clasped my shaking hands in your large, firm ones and stared into my eyes. You made me swear that I would never kill myself while being looked after, and that you would try your best to make up for the loss of such a large chunk of my heart.

And you did make up for the loss, and even more than that. It wasn't long before we started dating, though it wasn't quite unexpected after you saved my life. But I did feel an amazingly strong attraction towards you, more than I'd ever felt around anybody else. Whenever your lips touched mine, and our bodies melted together, I would realise why I wanted to live. When your strong arms wrapped me up in an embrace, I would feel safe and calm, like you were absorbing up all my troubles and leaving me as a peaceful body without a mind to store troubles in.

Of course, perfection like that wouldn't last long.

I had been returning early from my job at the nearby book store. That stomach ache I'd been complaining about in the early hours in the morning had really taken its toll, resulting in me having no choice but to return home.

I felt no need to phone you to let you know. As far as I knew, you were organising records, drinking coffee behind the counter and hijacking the record player that sent your favourite heavy rock booming around the shop walls and echoing off the metal panelled floors of your underground record store.

How wrong I was to think you were that sort of man.

I caught the two of you together, in the act. Together on the bed I shared with you. The bed you took me to after saving my life and gaining my ultimate trust.

Apparently you hadn't been too truthful with her, either. Red head. Ginger. I never found out the real name of the woman you had so cruelly replaced me with after you were sure I wasn't about to slice apart my wrists with a piece of metal.

But you know what hurt the most as I walked into the room and caught you both naked, kissing passionately while you thrust into her? It wasn't the fact that you replaced me with a girl. It wasn't the fact you replaced me at all, deep down I knew I would never be good enough for you anyway. It wasn't that you saved me and gained my trust, a hard thing to earn at the best of times, before throwing all that trust to the ground and jumping on it. It was the fact that when I gasped out your name, stuttering out a weak question, a plea for the truth, the girl who you had been lay with jumped up and gave you a dirty look, before yanking on her clothes and storming out. I looked at you for a few moments before storming out too.

But you came running back Ray. You came running back towards us as we exited the front door and ran onto the street. I turned left, she turned right.

Which way did you turn, Ray? Who was your biggest priority? You turned right, didn't you, Ray? After everything that you did for me, after everything we built together, you turned right.

That was what did it for me. I sprinted as fast as I could, cutting down side streets and rubbing angrily at my wet cheeks; I couldn't afford to cry at such an important time as this.

Life isn't easy though. You of all people should know that. Which is why I was caught in an empty, dark street by those firm and furious hands. Hands that haunted me in my nightmares. Nightmares where the scene of my brother's attack was replicated in many horrific ways. These were the hands of the man who had beat my own brother into hospital and further. Hands that beat me to the ground.

He probably would've inflicted more pain upon me than the brutal beating he gave me, had he known of Gerard and the grave that he had caused to be lowered into the dirt, locking away my brother in a prison underground, a fate I found unfair, for lack of a better word, for someone as amazing as Gerard.

When he was finished with me, when his fists halted their pounding against my skin, I continued on my journey, slower this time, with each step making my whole being ache with the intensity of my wounds.

The pain of my injuries was, however, nothing compared to the pain in my heart, the pain in my soul. The betrayal stabbing me like sharp pins that would never cease unless I stopped them myself. And, Ray, you knew in your heart where I was going and what I was doing. So why did you not come after me? Or did you, but you didn't care enough about me, the stupid wreck, to go fast enough that you could save me again?

After what you did to me, you could never earn back my trust.

I lumbered on, ignoring every spark of pain from my bruises and cuts, ignoring the glares and shocked gasps from passers by who noticed my extensive injuries. I ignored everything in the world around me until the strong smell filled my nostrils and I had to fight to dodge passing cars.

Here we go again. I was there again, Ray. So many memories of that place, and only a few hours spent there. I sprinted over to that very same petrol pump, free from cars at that moment, and leaned heavily against the shuddering metal machine. A pool of swirling coloured liquid pooled around my feet, across dark stained concrete. Letting my body slip down to a sitting position, I peered closely at the stained ground, and guess what, Ray? That stained ground was the very same one you rescued me from. What was the stain, might you ask? I think you know, Ray. I think you've worked out that the floor was stained with the dark red liquid that flowed from my wrists back then.

And it would flow again now.

I brought out the metal shard from my hoodie pocket. The metal shard from my broken old phone that, once upon a time, I threw to the floor and threw myself to the floor from the misery building up in my chest and threatening to spill out.

Now, I let out all that misery again.

When the floor was building up with my crystalline tears and my blood roaring in my ears, I brought the metal slowly towards my wrists. I dragged, pushing down against my skin until the blood was oozing out heavily. It coated my fingers and dripped into the pools around my feet.

I smiled, Ray. I smiled while I watched the blood because I knew it would be over soon.

And it was over soon. I only had three deep slits through each wrist when I felt myself going fuzzy. My vision turning into a blurry mess and my body losing all feeling. I think I was smiling when it ended, Ray. Smiling because I was going to see Gerard. Smiling because no more pain could be inflicted on my soul in death. Smiling because you couldn't betray me again if I wasn't around to see it.

In my last second I swear I heard you shouting. I hope I did. I hope you felt guilt weigh down your body like a tonne of bricks. Because what you did to me, Ray, what you did to me killed me inside way before it killed me outside.

So, Ray. I hope the afterlife is a good place. I hope I see Gerard; I have so much to tell him that I should have told him before he was cornered in that alley. And, Ray, I have a feeling it won't be long before I see you again.

If I see you again soon, then I'll know you really did care. I'll know that deep down, you wanted me to live.

And if I don't? Well, I'm sorry Ray. I'm sorry I ever bothered you with my existence. I'm sorry you ever had to find me here back then.

I'm sorry for being just another broken human being to use and throw away.


End file.
